Tower of St Michael's Northgate Oxford

This is the Tower of St Michael Northgate in Oxford. It is usually referred to as Saxon or even Anglo-Saxon. This is something of a misnoma since it was constructed most probably during the reign of the the Danish King Canute. So it should probably be called Anglo-Danish.

Whatever it should be called it exhibits the characteristic features of "Saxon" architecture - narrow windows and long and short work at the four corners of the tower.

It dates from between 1010 and 1040 AD. At this period Oxford was being raided by the Danes under Sweyn Forkbead, who was succeed by his son Cnut (Canute) in 1016. Canute became King of a great Anglo-Danish Empire.

He was a king of Denmark, England, Norway, and parts of Sweden, sometimes referred to as the North Sea Empire. After his death in 1035, and the deaths of his heirs within a decade, William the Conqueror took England in 1066, and instead of looking east to Scandinavia, England looked south to Normandy and France.